By Greg Maki
Four long years. I hadn’t attended a festival since Rock on the Range in May 2018, first due to the birth of my son in 2019 and then—well, everyone knows what happened in 2020. My long-awaited—for me, anyway—return came on the weekend of July 15-17, 2022, at the Ohio State Reformatory in the somewhat out-of-the-way small town of Mansfield, Ohio.
Once a working prison, the Ohio State Reformatory has been seen a lot in movies and TV, most famously in “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994). What started as Ink in the Clink in 2017 turned into the Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival a year later. The event has grown steadily in the years since, partnering with premier festival promoter Danny Wimmer Presents in 2021 and this year drawing a sold-out crowd of 25,000 “ink-mates” on each of its three days. It’s still the smallest of DWP’s major rock festivals—Welcome to Rockville, Louder Than Life and Aftershock all have expanded to four days—but it was an ideal way for me to ease back into the festival scene. So follow along as I take you through my first Inkcarceration experience.
11 A.M. – GATES OPEN
Right on time, the gates open and familiar sights are all around—the merch stand, the white tents of the vendors, people in black T-shirts who are going to bake in the sun all day, pale skin that will turn bright red within a few hours and, of course, the stages. As is becoming common at large festivals, the two main stages sit side by side, with only about a five-minute break between bands throughout the day. Of course, this means there’s little incentive for most fans to check out lesser known bands on the third stage, but no set-up is perfect.
Anticipating long lines later in the day, the first thing I do after surveying the grounds is take the self-guided tour of the prison, which is a unique festival experience. It’s been years since I watched “The Shawshank Redemption,” so nothing looks overly familiar, but it’s eerie to walk through this space where, for decades, people were locked in cages smaller than some people’s closets.
12:15 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – OXYMORRONS
The first band I see is Oxymorrons (“two Rs”), a rock/hip hop fusion act from Queens, New York. I’m not familiar with their music, but they bring a lot of energy to the stage at this early hour. I’d say that qualifies as a good start.
12:50 P.M. – INKED MAG STAGE – SPOKEN
I hadn’t seen or heard anything from Christian metalcore act Spoken since I saw them open for Volbeat back in 2013. Here they are nearly a decade later, still steadfast in their beliefs and rocking harder than ever. They start one song with the intro to Metallica’s “Sad but True” before launching into an original, which, sure, is a tease but certainly draws attention to their own tune. Well played.
1:25 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – BORN OF OSIRIS
The heavy kicks up a notch with Born of Osiris, though keyboards add a nice progressive element to the sound. But maybe playing early at a festival headlined by radio rock acts doesn’t provide an audience that’s seeking to appreciate the nuances and more technical side of a band like this.
2 P.M. – INKED MAG STAGE – DED
Ded is the first band of the day that many in the crowd seem familiar with, so the energy ticks up a bit. If you only know the band through its most recent Sirius XM Octane hit “Kill Beautiful Things,” Ded seems intent to remind you of how heavy it can be. Having not seen Ded live since 2017, it’s almost like watching a different band now with all the makeup and frontman Joe Cotela’s beard and costume.
DED SET LIST: “Parasite,” “Architect,” “Hate Me,” “Kill Beautiful Things,” “FMFY,” “Ant-Everything”
2:35 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – FROM ASHES TO NEW
I’m surprised by how many From Ashes to New songs I know, and there’s at least one other that doesn’t make the set list (“Scars That I’m Hiding”). Singer Danny Case can belt it out with the best of them. This dude’s got some serious pipes, and that might be one of my biggest takeaways of the entire weekend.
FROM ASHES TO NEW SET LIST: “Panic,” “Broken,” “Heartache,” “Broken by Design,” “My Name,” “Crazy,” “Nothing,” “Through It All”
3:10 P.M. – INKED MAG STAGE – LACUNA COIL
It’s been way too long since I’ve seen Lacuna Coil live. The last time I saw the Italian goth metal band, there were two or three members who now have been gone for years and they hadn’t embraced the makeup aesthetic they’ve been using for some time now. The band, led by vocalists Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro, is as good as ever and has settled nicely into the heavier sound it’s been pursuing for the better part of the past decade. Perhaps to that end, they’ve recorded a new “deconstructed and rebuilt” version of their 2002 breakthrough album “Comalies,” titled “Comalies XX,” for release later this year, and today they premiere the updated “Tight Rope.” “Our Truth,” from 2006’s “Karmacode,” is the real showstopper of the set, though.
LACUNA COIL SET LIST: “Blood, Tears, Dust,” “Trip the Darkness,” “Tight Rope,” “Reckless,” “Layers of Time,” “Our Truth,” “Nothing Stands in Our Way,” “Veneficium”
3:50 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – CODE ORANGE
The members of Code Orange, one of the most energetic and ferocious live acts I’ve ever seen, are like caged animals on the large festival stage, so the performance isn’t as chaotic as what you would see on a side stage or in a club. More of a sense of normalcy also comes from vocalist Jami Morgan coming out front from behind the drums. (He was the drummer through 2020.) I also don’t recall guitarist Reba Meyers handling as much of the vocals as she does here, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention in the past. Regardless, the intensity of this set is unmatched throughout the weekend.
4:30 P.M. INKED MAG STAGE – SLEEPING WITH SIRENS
I always get Sleeping with Sirens and While She Sleeps confused. That says more about me than either of the bands, specifically that I haven’t listened to them enough to know any of their songs. Sleeping with Sirens definitely has a following, though, and goes over well with the “ink-mates,” though the nasally voice of frontman Kellin Quinn is not to my liking.
5:15 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – DAUGHTRY
Led by former “American Idol” finalist Chris Daughtry, this band came back in a big way in 2021, and while I’m not exactly a fan, I’ll never deny that the man can sing. The set has a bit of a harder edge than I’m expecting, and a cover of the Alice in Chains classic “Man in the Box”—introduced by Chris Daughtry as a song he wishes he wrote—is a welcome surprise.
6 P.M. – INKED MAG STAGE – I PREVAIL
Can’t say I predicted the massive success I Prevail has achieved, but now it’s easy to see why its brand of heaviness and melody, with a dash of hip hop, has such large appeal. The crowd here is one of the most frenzied of the weekend, and the band absolutely kills it.
I PREVAIL SET LIST: “Bow Down,” “Gasoline,” “Scars,” “Bad Things,” “DOA,” “Hurricane,” “Body Bag,” “Paranoid,” “Breaking Down,” “Deadweight,” “Come and Get It”
7 P.M. SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – THREE DAYS GRACE
You want hits? ‘Cause Three Day Grace has got hits. Literally every song in the set is a hit single, so you can probably imagine the response at a festival like this. Few bands are a better fit in this type of setting.
THREE DAYS GRACE SET LIST: “So Called Life,” “Animal I Have Become,” “Home,” “Pain,” “The Mountain,” “The Good Life,” “Painkiller,” “Lifetime,” “I Hate Everything About You,” “Never Too Late,” “Riot”
8 P.M. – INKED MAG STAGE – PAPA ROACH
Also from the never-would-have-predicted-it file: How wild is it that Papa Roach is not just still here more than two decades after breaking with the “Infest” album but bigger than ever? The crowd loves everything frontman Jacoby Shaddix sings, says and does during a performance of songs spanning the band’s entire career, along with a couple covers (The Prodigy’s “Firestarter” and Blur’s “Song 2).
PAPA ROACH SET LIST: “Kill the Noise,” “Help,” “Blood Brothers,” “Broken Home,” “Dead Cell,” “Firestarter,” “Forever,” “None of the Above,” “Song 2,” “Getting Away with Murder,” “Between Angels and Insects,” “Swerve,” “No Apologies,” “Scars,” “… To Be Loved,” “Last Resort”
9:30 P.M. – SPACE ZEBRA STAGE – KORN
Coming up on 30 years since its self-titled debut and Korn is still out here rockin’ it. And though members have come and gone and come back, the band has consistently released new music and toured heavily throughout that time. I’ve seen Korn many times over the years now, so there aren’t any surprises in the set. But a festival headlined by Korn is a guarantee that most will go home happy.
KORN SET LIST: “Falling Away from Me,” “Got the Life,” “Here to Stay,” “Start the Healing,” “Cold,” “Shoots and Ladders,” “Y’all Want a Single,” “Somebody Someone,” “Insane,” “Worst Is on Its Way,” “Coming Undone,” “Freak on a Leash,” “Did My Time,” “Twist,” “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” “Blind”
Read our day two recap here.